Nunnally walks to where she had last seen the two strangers. They had taken the staircase down, not the elevator, yet the stairs were already empty.

She turns around to find Suzaku utterly entranced by someone at the edge of the room.

Wait, was that Kallen?

Suzaku slowly moves up to Kallen, adopting the pace and gait he used when under his mask. She was wearing a scarf, but she must be uncomfortable, adjusting it so much.

As he steps up behind her, she mutters something. "At least he didn't want me to wear a fur coat."

Suzaku abandons any thoughts he had entertained of slipping away quietly. "Who?"

Kallen twists around. She quickly notices just who is standing in front of her, a man who was supposed to be dead.

A man she had killed."No, You're dead. You can't be alive. No!" She sinks to the floor, tears of pain, hate, and confusion streaming off her face.

Honestly, Suzaku found it a bit amusing. Every time he had played out this scenario in his head, he had ended up with at least a broken arm or two. Sometimes those mental simulations ended with Kallen going so far as to kill him. But he had never expected her to break down and cry. It was so unlike her.

"Come on Kallen, get off the floor. I thought you had a mission to do?" It was a guess, but hopefully she was trying to find Zero. Of course, she had just found him, but...

Kallen slowly straightens up, using the railing behind her to pull herself up.

"How? How are you not dead?" a little anger starts to return to her voice. "How come you let Lelouch die? How come you didn't save him? Did you get a better offer from someone else? That Elliot guy?"

Suzaku blinks. Who's Elliot? "I never betrayed Lelouch. He did what he had to do. Now let's go. If I'm seen here, and you're seen here sobbing on the floor, people may notice, and we really don't want that right now."

Kallen's left eye twitches, but she nods in agreement. Suzaku turns around and walks to the exit, signaling Nunnally to follow. Nunnally gets to the elevator first, and holds the door open for Lelouch and Kallen. The three of them stand in silence as the doors close and the box makes its decent.

Kallen doesn't look around to ask her first question. "How did you survive?"

"The Lancelot had a security feature installed called a "Parachute." It allows one to jump from high places." He voice is a little teasing, but Kallen can tell he's at least telling a half truth.

"Why didn't you save Lelouch? If you had survived, you could have stopped Zer-"

She froze in place, unwilling to let the thought enter her head. There is NO WAY that Suzaku was Zero.

"He told me not to do anything to stop Zero. I didn't."

Suzaku's voice had grown much colder by the time he had finished that sentence.

"Do you know who Zero is now?"

"I do, but I can't tell you. Their life is in the line at the moment." Which was true. Kallen is the deadliest person he still knew, and Suzaku's locked in a box with her.

"Elliot again?"

"I honestly have no clue who this Elliot is. Maybe you can tell me?"

Kallen grudgingly told him of the conversation she had about Elliot. Suzaku turns to Nunnally after Kallen finishes."Nunnally, you said you saw two people with weird Geass?"

"Not so much weird, but they each had their Geass overwritten with random letters. If I had a picture, I could decipher each of their original Geass. I think."

Kallen also turns to Nunnally. "And how come you seem to know him so well? It's been twelve years, nothing like your childhood friend exists in him anymore." Her words fill with venom.

Nunnally blushes and stutters something under her breath.

"Leave her alone. She recognized me, and I asked her to keep quite about it until now. I'm sure she would have told you if you needed to know."

Nunnally nods vigorously.

Kallen snorts. "Fine, but you're dreaming if you think I'm going to trust you."

"No problems here. I'm seriously just glad you haven't killed me yet."

"Believe me, I'm thinking about it."

The rest of the elevator ride passed in uncomfortable silence.

When the doors opened at the bottom, Kallen and Nunnally started for the bunker while Suzaku heads in the opposite direction. As soon as she notices, Kallen calls after him."I need to know. Are you Zero?" her voice carries desperation.

Suzaku considers his answers. "If I was, wouldn't I be wearing a mask?"In the shadows behind the elevator platform, two figures stand.

"This is really bad, isn't it?"

o-o-o-o

Suzaku had no money, no place to go, and no friends, especially since he was supposed to be dead. He couldn't access he bank account, assuming it was still active, or else they'd find him. He couldn't contact Jeremiah, because despite his involvement he still never learned who the Zero was.

The last option he had was one set up for him if he was ever publicly found out.

After two hours of walking, he arrives at the correct door. "62 chestnut. Well, here goes nothing." He knocks three times on the door. The door slowly opens as someone carefully draws it back. "Hello?"

"Ah, yes, I'm looking for a... Matilda Lockheart?" The eye peeking around the door blinks. "I can see that. What do you want with her?"

"Um..." This part wasn't mentioned when the supposed safehouse was set up. "Asylum?"

The voice behind the eye stifles a yawn. "Alright, come in." so saying, she slams the door in his face.

Baffled, Suzaku stands on the doorstep for a few seconds, then tried the door. It opens easily, and he steps into the building, closing the door behind him. The person who had let him in was nowhere to be found, unless you counted the fact that the door on the end was made of a metal and had the general look of a "disguised" safehouse Brittania used to set up anywhere they went. He pokes his head into a few different doors, but most of them are completely bare. One has some disturbing red paint marks and a broken chair, along with some bags of flour in the corner. At least, he hoped it was flour.

When he at last tries the metal door, a small whirring noise captures he attention. A small camera descends from the ceiling and takes a picture of his face. The camera retreats back into the ceiling and the door stays firmly closed. On the other side, Suzaku could just barely make out a voice. "Stay out there. If you need anything, check the third room on the right. There's some cash under the floorboard, but don't use too much of it."

Suzaku wonders if this is how his life was going to be from now on.

o-o-o-o

"Suzaku's outside. He must have read the contingency plan that Emperor Lelouch made."

The man groans. "He couldn't have picked a better time, huh?"

"Apparently, he's got nowhere else."

"Bull. He could have followed Kallen and Nunnally home."

"I don't see why he didn't either, but no sense tipping our hand just yet."

The man turns around and smiles. "I could've sworn we tipped our hand quite a while ago..."

o-o-o-o

Once they both arrive at their temporary Japanese quarters, Kallen rounds on Nunnally.

"How come you were with Suzaku? Did he find you and get you out?" Kallen looks properly worried about her now that were behind closed doors. Nunnally suspects that she hides all sorts of emotions under that unchangingly straight face that she uses during missions."Yeah, he tried to rescue me, but in the end we both had to rescue each other. It was pretty funny, at least in hindsight."

"Well, as long as he didn't hurt you." Kallen heaves a sigh of relief.

"Oh, he'd never do that! We've known each other since we were kids!"

Kallen decides not to mention that being friends does not always preclude murder.

Nunnally heads to her room, and Kallen to hers.

o-o-o-o

The next morning, Suzaku is found waiting outside of Kallen and Nunnally's temporary housing. He's disguised himself enough to not be immediately recognizable. Of course, the fact Kallen identified him so quickly probably wasn't a good sign.

Kallen and Nunnally decided to head to the mall (Kallen did shudder once, but Nunnally missed it). They each needed some basic supplies like toothpaste, which had not been provided. Suzaku tagged along, having nothing better to do, even as a fugitive from the entire human populous. He found it quite amusing how Kallen kept giving him odd glances, quit different from the ones he got while under a mask. Suzaku reflects that he should obtain another Zero suit as soon as he could.

Nunnally keeps looking back and forth between Suzaku and Kallen. She realizes that Suzaku would probably be in trouble if he revealed his secret, but all the same she wished there were no more secrets between the two of them.

As they stop to look at a statue of Zero in the center of the pathway, several of the advertisement screens abruptly go black. Kallen and Suzaku react by putting their backs together to see any threat from any side. Nunnally is still looking at the flowers around the statue.

Just as soon as Suzaku realizes that it was just a weird signal failure and he starts to relax, the lights go off.

Nunnally and several shoppers scream in the sudden darkness. Nunnally clutches onto Kallen's hand, being the first one she could find in the dark.

The ad boards that had gone off earlier now light up with the Geass symbol.

"Greetings, shoppers. I have a request to make of you all. Stay where you are, don't call anyone, and nobody gets hurt. I am looking for one person in this crowd, and he knows who he his. Again, if nobody interferes, nobody dies." The voice emanating from the mall's PA system is easy to recognize for Suzaku and Nunnally.

Max, the man with a Geass that detects lies was looking for Suzaku, and had him cornered.

o-o-o-o

"Oh, no. The order just surfaced at the mall."

The woman looks over the man's shoulder. "Huh. Do you think Suzaku can handle it?"

"No doubt. He's always been quick on his feet."

"Can we help them in any way?"

The man strokes his beard thoughtfully. "We could always try to confuse them by messing with their connection to the mall, but we would have a hard time utilizing any other tactics." he chuckles. "If we tried to contact them over the PA, everyone would hear, including them. If we could track them inside the store, why didn't the order do it first?"

"Good points. But still, we should be able to help them a bit more.""Got any ideas?"

She grins at him. "Do we still have those triangulation drones?"

o-o-o-o

Lady Kaguya was disguised as a civilian in a mall, just trying to look at the latest fashions for normal people when the lights went out. She had no choice but to duck into a shop and sit and wait for the lights to come back on.

People were restless, and she held her breath each time one passed near her. If the lights were on, her hiding place would be stupid, but with the lights out. She was perfectly had to find. Still, she pulled her personal defense stunner out of her purse, for just in case...